


Stress Eating

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Comfort Food, Diego Hargreeves is Bad at Feelings, Dysfunctional Family, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Gen, Luther Hargreeves Needs A Hug, POV Diego Hargreeves, Post-Season/Series 02, References to Canon, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26153839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: In all the years that Diego had known him, had he seen Luther eat quite so much.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves
Comments: 18
Kudos: 90





	Stress Eating

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't finished season 2 yet, but I know that Luther eats a whole lot more than in season one, and in the comics, he gets morbidly obese from it?? I wanted to kinda talk about that without being terrible/getting into too much detail. So this is my take on Luther and Diego trying to repair their strained relationship and me trying to be sensitive towards the topic of eating disorders. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Maybe Diego should have mentioned something back in 1963 when the extent of the problem became increasingly obvious to him, but they had a lot going on at the time, and now that things had calmed down a bit and he’d had the chance to reflect, he was paying attention to things he never would have before.

It had taken him a long time to notice it at first. Maybe because he wasn’t exactly paying much attention to the goings-on of his siblings during that time, with much more pressing and important matters to deal with. And besides, he hadn’t seen Luther in months, hadn’t seen the others in _years_ , to them. What gave him the right to comment on the habits they picked up in that time? He spent three months in the nuthouse, for fucks sakes. He couldn’t pick on anyone for how they coped, like Vanya and the farm, and Klaus and his cult, and Allison and her husband and Luther and his bodyguarding career. They all coped better than Diego had, anyway.

But never, in all the years that Diego had known him, had he seen Luther eat quite so much.

It started with little things. With emptying boxes of chocolate chip cookies that he had just opened or shoving fist-sized portions of chocolates that seemed tiny in his huge hands into his mouth without even thinking about it. Just little things, things Diego could dismiss as a little strange but mostly normal behaviour. Everybody eats, right? And who didn’t like a special treat every now and again? He doubted Luther got much of anything other than dehydrated soot and pureed paste up on the moon.

But then he started eating bigger and bigger meals, meals that could feet entire families with leftovers, and he would eat it all with an almost pensive, dysphoric expression on his face, eyebrows pulled together in a frown as stress lined his face as he absently licked sauce and grease and crumbs off his fingers.

Diego had never seen anything like it, especially not from Luther. Klaus, maybe, because Klaus liked his vices no matter what they were, and always had an appreciation for food, and he doubted that Five got to enjoy many warm, filling meals during the apocalypse, but Luther? The thought had never crossed his mind. That strict, controlled, righteous Luther would spend most of his time  _ eating _ .

And it wasn’t like he was doing it on purpose, either. From what Diego could tell, it was a subconscious thing, a habit that Luther had developed over time and now found himself mindlessly doing without putting much thought behind it. And Diego used to be a detective, after all, before the world literally ended and it all went to shit, so he tended to notice little things like this.

The strange thing was that even Luther didn’t seem to notice and that none of their other siblings had either. Sure, maybe that these past few months- years for some- apart had given them all a new perspective on things, but the siblings he knew would take every opportunity to roast Luther on his new habit. But nobody had said a word. Maybe they were just being nice, turning a blind eye to Luther’s food intake in order to preserve his admiralty strained sensitivities.

As far as coping mechanisms go, this wasn’t the worst, right? Klaus spent most of his life high on drugs and drunk as a skunk. Five spent years obsessing over the apocalypse and found himself useless when they thought they had averted it. Luther eating a little bit more than he used to wasn’t so bad, right? 

But then Diego began to notice that he seemed a little softer around the middle, that his chest seemed doughier than last time. It was hard to tell under all that fur and ape physiology that Diego knew nothing about, but comparing the Luther from 2019 and the Luther from 1963, there was an obvious difference. Maybe he just didn’t have any food up there on the moon, but whatever it was, it was making an obvious addition to his waistline. 

Luther went for runs, now. Diego was sure that it had nothing to do with his sudden increased food intake and that he always worked out in some way or other, but now Diego was actually noticing it. If he wasn’t eating, he was going for long runs, or shadow-boxing with the back wall of Vanya’s apartment building. 

It was like a cycle. And it seemed like Diego was the only one who noticed it, even more than Luther himself.

The time he spent locked away in that asylum in 1963 was a literal hell, but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t learn some useful things from those group therapy sessions he was forced to attend. There was a lot of really fucked up people in that place, but he couldn’t blame them. He was in that place long enough that it started to make him crazy, that he started to doubt his own sanity and who he was. But he learned a lot of things, mostly from the other patients and their own therapy sessions, like the people who ate a lot and punished themselves for it or those that didn’t eat at all, or those people still trying to find a healthy combination of both.

Luther was a lot like them, in many ways. It was harder to tell what he looked like under all those layers of clothes and his ape body that Diego really didn’t want to take the time to get to know intimately, but he could tell that he was different, even under all the layers that Luther wore like armour or a comfort blanket. Maybe his stomach was bigger than a normal human and he was just hungry a normal amount for an ape. Regardless, he ate more than Diego could fathom. He didn’t know where he put it away. Though he hadn’t gotten off completely scot-free- his abs were softer, his chest was plush and thick, and he had what Diego could only acquaint to being called ‘love handles’. Luther always did have a problem with knowing when to stop, even when they were kids. If Reginald didn’t explicitly give him an order, he was lost. He had no self-control. Whether it be fights or arguments or training, Luther needed to be told before he could stop. It was just the way he was.

But now, as an adult, he had apparently chosen his vice, like the rest of them, and his was apparently _food_. But not just any food. Comfort food. Food like a tray of mac and cheese, made like Grace used to, or pancakes with lots of syrup like when they were children, cookies with almonds and raisins. It was less fatty, unhealthy foods and more things that Diego had seen Luther eat before, but it was just the sheer amount of it that was surprising. Maybe if he had been eating it at a slower pace, maybe it wouldn’t have been so obvious, but it was just so much in such a short amount of time, it stuck out like a sore thumb, especially on Luther and his usually muscular physique. And somehow, for some odd reason, the new habit worried Diego to no end.

Back in 2019, most of them were staying in Vanya’s midtown apartment after learning that their childhood home and adulthood headquarters had been taken over by a whole nother team of super-powered kids and their now alive father. They had been offered rooms, but none of them was willing to be under the same roof as their father for that long, especially after what happened last time.

Vanya had been kind enough to extend an offer for them to stay at her home. She and Allison took the only bed. Knowing how desperately Five needed sleep after the most hectic two weeks of his life, Diego had given him the key to his place under the gym and let Five sleep there for the night, away from the others. Diego and Luther were supposed to share the pull-out couch while Klaus spelt in the corner cushioned from the ground with pillows and blankets, but Diego had woken some point in the middle of the night to the once occupied space beside him cold and empty and a rustling in the kitchen.

Diego watched Luther silently for a moment while he wiped the sleep from his eyes and tugged at the blanket tucked around his chin as Luther shuffled around the kitchen, searching through Vanya’s cupboards and rummaging in the fridge, the occasional bright light making Diego squint and grimace as his eyes struggled to get used to the darkness. Luther’s footsteps were heavy, every footfall making the floor shake and plates and cutlery rattle in their places, and Klaus stirred and grumbled every time a particularly heavy step came too close and reverberated up through the floor.

Eventually, Diego got sick and tired of watching and pushed the blanket away, sitting up against the back of the couch and letting his legs star-fish on the open recliner. “Luther?” he broke the silence and Luther froze. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Shit,” Luther mumbled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake anyone.”

“It’s almost four in the morning,” Diego objected when the clock on Vanya’s wall seemed to scream at him. “The fuck are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Luther said like it was obvious. As if it answered all the questions.

Diego waited for more, but when it became obvious that there was no more, he reluctantly threw the blanket off his legs and began grudgingly heaving himself up off the comfy, warm bed. “So you decided to raid Vanya’s kitchen instead of counting sheep?”

Frustrated and trying not to show it, Luther shoved another piece of individually wrapped square cheese into his mouth and judging by the slowly growing, unbalanced pile already on the counter, it wasn’t his first one. “Just go back to sleep, Diego.”

Never one to listen to what his brother ordered, Diego did the opposite and joined Luther in the tiny kitchen to hop up on the counter, his hands braced either side of him, his legs swinging back and forth. “You know that if you’re eating, you can’t be sleeping, right? Unless you want me to wake Klaus and have him feed you through a straw during your REM sleep.”

“Butt out, Diego,” Luther snapped, swinging his arm out and forcing Diego to lean out of the way.

“Dude, I wasn’t trying to judge you,” Diego tried. The look on Luther’s face immediately told him that he had put his foot in his mouth again, and he backpedalled, trying to take a different approach. “I was just wondering why you were raiding Vanya’s kitchen instead of us going out to eat or something. That way, Vanya wakes to a full kitchen and you can eat until your heart’s content.”

Grunting, Luther shifted so he could turn his back on Diego. “I don’t want to go out.”

Diego frowned and reached out so he could tap Luther on the shoulder. Luther shrugged him off as he made himself a sandwich with the random things he found in Vanya’s kitchen. “Then what do you want to do then, huh? You obviously don’t want to sleep, and it’d clear that you don’t want to chat, so what do you want?”

“Go  _ away _ .”

Luther’s voice was sharp, and his shoulders were squared while his head was down, and if Diego didn’t know any better, he’d say that Luther was readying for a fight. But he wouldn't do that, not in Vanya’s apartment at four in the morning when he would have to explain himself to the others. But Diego knew that the threat was still there.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Diego said, and he knew that he was on thin fucking ice here, but somehow, for some reason, he knew he couldn’t leave it. “1963 kinda fucked you up, didn’t it?”

Shaking his head, Luther’s snort was harsh and loud. “1963 fucked us all up. Allison had to live during the time of segregation. Klaus started a cult because he was lonely. Ben died again. You were thrown into an asylum. Five finally went crazy. The only person who had any semblance of a good time back then was Vanya, who forgot who she was and what happened and was a nanny on a farm.”

“And what do you think it did to  _ you _ if you’ve taken the time to psycho-analyse the rest of us like a creep?” Diego retorted without any heat. He wasn’t sure what subsided him most- that he was asking, or the lack of heat.

“There’s  _ nothing  _ wrong with me,” Luther’s shoulders were still tense, and he looked over his shoulder just long enough to glare at Diego before turning back around to face the sandwich he was carefully constructing on the counter. “In fact, I think I was better off in 1963 than I was in 2019.”

It took every muscle in Diego’s body to hold back his scoff and cutting remark. “Are you serious?”

Luther didn’t answer. He occupied himself by taking a large bite of his sandwich, filling his mouth as an excuse not to speak to Diego any more. 

He was probably expecting Diego to leave when it became obvious that Luther wasn’t in the mood to talk to him, but Diego was just as stubborn as the rest of his siblings, and he could wait a long time if he had to. He spent three months in an asylum waiting for the right moment to escape- he knew a thing or two about patience.

But there was also something unquestionably _sad_ about Luther with his broad back to his brother, head down as he ate as quietly as he could, shoulders hunched as if he were ashamed to be eating at four in the morning for no real reason. It was almost as if he were trying to hide, and Diego had never seen that from Luther, not even when they were kids, and especially not once his body from the neck down was mutated into a giant ape.

If Diego were another guy, he would reach out to place a comforting hand on Luther’s shoulder. If Luther were someone else, he wouldn’t have his back turned to Diego as he tried to make his impossibly large form as small as he could in his sister's already tiny kitchen. But here they were, pretending each other didn't exist as they both struggled with the thoughts in their head. 

“You know,” Diego said carefully. Luther’s shoulders tensed again, raising like the hackles of an angry dog. “I met a lot of people like you while I was stuck in the asylum. People who ate or didn’t eat or ate too much so they didn’t have to think about their problems or could take their mind off of them by doing something else for a little bit.”

Luther didn’t turn to him, but Diego could tell, just as he could when they were kids, that he was resisting the urge to fling himself through a window to get out of the conversation. “What are you talking about?” he muttered, pulling his sandwich apart with his hands, almost as if he couldn’t bear the thought of eating now that Diego was watching.

“I’m not sure, to be totally honest with you man. I barely paid attention during those group therapy sessions,” Diego tried to sound indifferent, detached, but he wasn’t sure if he hit the mark. “But I remember them talking about eating when the stress got too much to handle, or when they found themselves stuck in their own heads for too long. Trying to fill their lives with good things that they enjoy rather than the dark things that they listen to all day.”

Still, Luther didn’t turn. “Your  _ point _ ?”

“My  _ point  _ is that I’m pretty sure you’re doing the same thing that those guys were doing in the asylum,” Emboldened, Diego cut to the chase, momentarily forgetting that Luther was an enormous emotionally-repressed strong man and not just his brother who was going through some shit.

This time, Luther did turn around, using the back of his hand to wipe crumbs from the corner of his mouth as he fixed Diego with a glare to rival all glares. “Are you trying to say that I belong in a mental asylum?”

Pursing his lips, Diego held back his snarky reply. He had gotten better at that lately, holding his tongue when the situation didn’t need to be aggravated. If only Luther knew just how hard he was trying. “No, dude, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to say that you don’t have to be sneaking around at four in the morning trying to eat behind our backs. Not a single one of us would give you any kind of shit for it. Probably not even Five. Probably.”

Over the years, he had gotten used to the way Luther’s anger flared like a slowly erupting volcano, the way his fists tensed at his sides, the way he looked near seconds away from snapping and throwing a punch. Automatically, Diego prepared to dodge any attack that came his way, knowing that it was a definite possibility. “There’s nothing wrong with me, Diego,”

“I never said there was,” Diego retorted. 

They stood there facing each other, stuck in a Mexican standoff, both waiting for the other to make the first move. Eventually, Luther deflated, shoulders slumping and chest falling as he collapsed back against the counter, the linoleum creaking and groaning under his bulk. “Why can’t you just leave me alone, Diego? Why do you have to…” he waved a hand. “...do  _ this _ ? Why can’t you just leave me be?”

“We were all alone for a very long time. You more so than me. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of being alone,” Diego tried to keep his voice gentle and kind. “But you know I’m right, don’t you? You’ve had to have noticed it. It can’t just be me.”

“Of course I noticed it, Diego,” Luther sounded like he wanted the conversation to end as soon as possible. “What do you want me to say here? Yes, I know, I’m huge and I eat any time that I can. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“Dude, I’m not trying to throw you under the bus or get you to admit your deepest darkest secrets,” Diego said. “I was just… concerned, I guess. I saw what happened to those people in the asylum when they had nobody to talk to. I just don’t want it to fester up inside and get worse.”

Luther looked at him suspiciously. “Since when did you start caring?”

“Uh, since we all almost died twice and got teleported to different points in time and went threw a whole fuck-tonne of trauma to nearly all die again?” Diego made a face.

“That’s fair,” Luther conceded.

They stood there in silence for a few minutes. Outside, there was a commotion on the street, a drunken argument, a hissing cat, the crashing of metal rubbish bins. In the corner partially hidden behind the couch, Klaus curled up in a ball, wrapping his arms around himself, muttering nonsense. Birds warred for dominance in the trees. Somewhere, music blared from a house party and a dog barked at passers-by in the distance.

“So,” Diego broke the silence. “You stress eat then, huh?”

It wasn’t a clarification, but he felt like the words needed to be said. “I guess so,” Luther sighed. “Pretty pathetic if you ask me.”

“Nah, we’ve all got our baggage and our own ways to deal with them,” Diego shrugged, hoping that Luther didn’t bring that up, or dive too deeply into it. The last thing he needed was for him to start asking how Diego dealt with whatever his baggage was. “As far as coping mechanisms go, eating a little more than normal isn’t too bad. Besides, I think you look good with a couple of extra pounds on that monkey body of yours.”

A deep blush spread across Luther’s cheeks. “ _ Fuck _ .”

Wincing, Diego rose his hands to his side in a placating kind of matter, “Sorry. You know that I’m really shitty with words and stuff. I wasn’t- I was just trying to say that I think you look good and I couldn’t give two fucks about whether you eat or not. I just… I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m here if you need me.”

The look on Luther’s face was so comical that Diego almost laughed. He looked like his brain was short-circuiting. “Uh, thanks, Diego. I appreciate it.”

“No worries,” Diego slid down from the bench and started to make his way back to the pull-out bed. “Anyway, finish your sandwich and then go back to sleep. We’ve got to go out tomorrow morning to buy Vanya more food, considering you’ve completely raided her kitchen.”

“Don’t ruin it,” Luther warned, but there was humour beneath the threat as if he was trying not to laugh.

Diego chucked as he began pulling the blankets over himself again, and a few minutes later, he felt the bed dip beside him and the entire thing rock as Luther got comfortable, and for once in his life, a snide comment or seething insult was the furthest thing from Diego’s mind.


End file.
